No Stoves, No Ovens, All Live Fire: A Day With the Sous Chef at Osito

[bright music]

Cooking over a live fire makes my life more difficult

and more fun at the same time.

No stoves, no ovens, no microwaves.

You have to constantly be feeding it and watching over it.

I call it kind of like, a needy boyfriend.

Between the two fires, we put out 720 plates an evening.

As sous chef here, I oversee prepping dishes

and putting final touches on things,

as well as making sure that the staff, the line cooks,

the commis, are all on track and on schedule for the day.

It's five o'clock.

[Staff] Five!

[bright music continues]

Hi, I'm Sarah Baldwin,

I'm the Executive Sous Chef at Osito.

Come on in.

[bright music continues]

This is Osito restaurant.

We are 100% live fire.

Everything is burned through wood

and we use coals to heat things up and cook.

It's 8:00 AM and as exec sous,

the first thing I do to start the day is to build a fire

so we can get cooking.

So here we have a little kit to start our fire today.

The only use for this blow torch in the restaurant

is to build this fire.

As much as I would like to say I use rocks,

I'm not that good. [chuckles]

We have menus from previous days

that we're gonna use to crumple up to light and kindle.

So I'm gonna curl up a couple of these first.

We have smaller pieces of wood

that'll catch a little bit faster.

Setting up a little Lincoln log for ourselves,

intertwine our pieces of paper that we have twisted

to kind of help catch fire.

Here at Osito we use a 50% almond and oak.

From the almond, you'll get a little bit more

of like, a nutty flavor and a little bit fruitier.

And then from our oak, you'll get something rounder

and deeper for when we're smoking.

When you're building a fire,

the three things that are super important

are to give it air, a heat source and ventilation.

I feel nothing anymore.

And then right now what I'm doing

is I'm starting to push our fire into the corners.

By building it closer to one wall of the oven,

as the fire builds and the air flows upward,

it's going to push to the other side

and then kind of climb back in,

and that'll help us build a convection in the oven.

So let's build a fire over here

so we can start cooking over the hearth.

What I'm looking for right now are just manageable pieces

that'll catch quickly.

This dryer stuff that has moss on it will catch,

so that will be more ideal for this application.

See, our fire's getting pretty big over here.

We're in a good place.

So then, I'm gonna take one of these smaller pieces

and use it to build the new one.

Everything has contact with some element of wood.

Between the two fires, we will be cooking enough food

to put out about 720 plates an evening.

I find it more satisfying to cook over fire

because it takes a little bit more than turning a knob.

If you want more heat,

you have to feed the fire a little bit more

to get more coals to then heat up your pot,

and it kind of feeds my brain in a different way.

These fires seem to be lit and going.

It's around 8:15, and at this time,

we're gonna write out our prep list for the day

and get everyone on their tasks.

As the opening sous chef,

it's definitely more of my job to make sure

that everything gets mapped out for the day.

Our current menu is about nine courses.

It's composed of 20 plates.

The way that we build the menu is based on seasonality,

and currently we're doing a game bird's menu.

We were inspired a little bit by the holidays.

All the components in the tasks that go into that

are kind of gonna be divvied up

based on everyone's personal strengths.

If I know that someone is really great at kneading bread

and portioning and forming,

then I'm gonna have them focus on that,

and then someone else is gonna take the garnish

for that same plate.

Teamwork makes the dream work.

Okay, so it's about 8:30,

and we're gonna get started on Seven Ducks A-Pekin

and break down some ducks.

[calm music]

These are beautiful ducks that we get in

from Liberty Ducks in Sonoma.

This is gonna be a cross between

a Muscovy and a Peking duck,

so it's gonna be a little bit bigger

than the average duck that you see.

The top here is the neck and it has all this extra fat,

and I'm just gonna take it off

so I can get to other parts of the duck a little bit easier,

but we will be saving this fat.

From here, I'm gonna grab the front

and I'm gonna feel for the wishbone,

tip my knife above where I would feel the bone,

kind of get my hand in.

Put my finger around to kind of loosen it up

from the breast meat and make my way up,

pull out and break it off,

and then you see here we have the wishbone.

Flip the bird over and I'm gonna get the wings.

I'm gonna use the weight of the duck

to kind of help me maneuver and find my way to the bone.

So this is pretty much like the armpit of the duck.

Make a little incision here.

And then as I pull back, see the joint pop out a little bit?

Follow it with my knife.

[calm jazz music]

The Seven Ducks A-Pekin is gonna be the full utilization

of the duck.

We're using the breast meat that we make into prosciutto.

We also use the duck liver.

We make a mousse out of that.

We grill it in cabbage and wrap it up,

and it's filled with a pineapple guava jelly.

We have a course that uses the duck brain

with a little bit of embered sunchoke.

Brains are kind of a softer texture.

It's kind of similar to panacotta,

and I'm sorry for the visual that I just created,

but it's true.

The casserole dish that we have on the menu currently,

that was a dish that I created for that course.

We're taking all of our duck wings

and braising them in duck stock.

On top of that, we have creamed spinach,

black trumpet mushrooms with truffle

and we top it with crunchy scallions.

This knife is a Tojiro Honesuki,

a knife that's designed for butchery

and it has an angled tip that makes it a little bit easier

to wedge your way in when you're trying to separate meat

from the bone.

We usually butcher about 10 ducks a week.

These are pretty generous size

so we're able to utilize a lot of it for multiple people.

The duck carcasses here,

spend some time in our wood fired oven and roast,

and then we're going to make a duck stock,

which then goes back into braising the duck wings

that we previously talked about.

And that's it.

It's about 9:30,

so we're gonna get these bones roasting.

And moving on to our next project, which is the dashi,

which is a Japanese broth that is gonna be put

into our chawanmushi dish.

Let's go.

[upbeat music]

♪ Yeah ♪

I'm just getting some water and a pot here

to bring to a boil to start making my dashi.

Chawanmushi is a steamed egg custard normally found

in Japanese restaurants.

We're gonna season it with a little bit of white soy

and then olive our uni from the day before

is actually gonna be blended into the base.

In this coal harvesting,

would you mind putting some under the chawanmushi, guys?

Thank you.

The hearth here is kind of the lifeline

of the restaurant throughout the day.

Throughout prep and throughout service.

We're constantly feeding it wood so that we can build coals

and then transfer it to wherever needed.

And the bigger the pile and the closer up to the metal

is gonna be how hot it's going to be.

So, to start the dashi base for our chawanmushi,

I have some kombu here that I am going to have

kiss the fire a little bit

to impart some of that smokey flavor.

Kombu is seaweed that has been salt cured and dried

rather than just being the umami that you get from seaweed.

It'll have like a little bit of like a deeper flavor.

I don't wanna burn it,

I just kind of wanna see it start to ripple.

We've had our water on the flat top here for a little bit.

It's about the right temperature to start our dashi.

So we have our torched kombu

that we just did and we're gonna pop that in there.

And then,

these are dehydrated smoke king trumpet mushroom stems.

When we cut them up and portion them for service,

I take all of the butts and I put it up top,

dehydrated and smoke,

just to re-impart that flavor in the dish.

Same idea with our mandarin skins.

And I just save all the peel and then I add that in here.

And then, classic bonito flakes,

dehydrated flakes of fish that are typically from tuna.

Adds a little bit of umami as well as a slight fish flavor.

And then the last ingredient for this dashi

is going to be some pine needles.

It's gonna bring out the grassiness

of all of our other ingredients.

Might be a little bit of Asian influence in the food

that I make because I am a hoppa.

My mom is Filipino and my dad is a Caucasian man.

So I grew up kind of having a lot

of traditional Asian treats,

as well as your stereotypical Kraft macaroni and cheese.

So I kind of like to think that the food that I make

is a blend between the two.

I'm gonna kind of mix it up a little bit,

and then I'm gonna let this steep

for about 20 to 30 minutes and strain.

You don't want it to go any longer

than that because the pine tends to turn bitter.

So we just wanna make sure

that we catch it before that point.

All right, so our dashi is done.

It's about 10:15 and we're gonna go

into our next project, which is making pate.

[upbeat music]

The pate that we're making is gonna be a pork butt

and squab innards.

We use pork butt because it's a nice ratio

between fat and lean meat.

It's always important for the bite and the structure

of the meat to have a good percentage of fat to meat.

This pate kind of evolves with the seasons

and what's available.

Before it was persimmon pear, but right now we have

some really beautiful dehydrated peaches,

and I thought it might be a nice bright addition

to this dish.

This pate is served with our house made milk bread.

It has a little bit of allium powder in there

that we make in-house.

So we take all of our scallion tops, throw 'em up top

and use that as our dehydrator and then we grind it

to a fine powder and fold it into our batter.

Head over to the prep kitchen to bring down our meat grinder

and then we can start grinding our pate.

So here we have all of our pork and we're gonna season it

with a mixture of cured salt as well as our fine sea salt.

Then we're gonna get grinding.

And start feeding some of the pork through.

It's not exactly the most glamorous job,

but someone's gotta do it.

Oh, yeah, meaty.

The rehydrated peaches and figs

that we are adding to our pate

add a little bit of sweet and tartness.

We have a lot of umami and savory notes,

and this kind of balances it out.

And when it's served with the jam,

it kind of pops a little bit more.

I rehydrated the peaches and figs

with a little bit of white wine and warm spices,

and then add our squab innards,

a little bit of heart and liver

and we get about 40 squabs in a week.

We want to use all the parts.

So that's gonna land in our pate this week.

Very Valentine's Day oriented when you do this. [laughs]

What'd you do today?

Just grind some hearts.

The last bit is going in

and we're gonna finish mixing everything in the kitchen.

Next step is to add our eggs and our milk.

So I'm gonna make sure I break down these eggs

a little bit better,

and then we're gonna start dumping into this Lexan.

This is gonna make approximately 12 loaves,

which will last us probably about a week,

and then we'll start this whole process over again.

Doing bigger projects is more on my side,

because it has to be so precise as far

as like, measurements and consistency of the meat.

So right now you can kind of see there's separation

between the meat and all of the liquid

that we're adding to it.

Once we fully emulsify it and mix it,

you'll see that it'll bind and you won't see any separation.

It'll just be like all one mass.

She looks crazy right now,

but I promise you it's pretty good.

From here, I'm gonna start doing my favorite task

and also workout.

We're gonna start kind of self emulsifying it like this,

bringing the fat and the proteins together.

As I'm doing this, it's starting to clump up a little bit,

and that's like exactly what we're looking for.

And then play whatever music you need to

to get you motivated for the last push.

Oh, yeah. [upbeat pop music]

So then, I don't have to do arms today.

As you can see, it's like starting to kind of like,

really stick together.

It's pulling away from the edges

and it's kind of building more of a mass in the center.

So we're almost there.

Chef?

Sound wise and feel wise, it feels pretty tacky right?

Squeeze it.

Like a... [sniffs]

Basically when you work it,

the salt pulls the proteins out

and so, the more you work it, the tackier it gets,

and so you're listening for it

to be really tacky in your hands.

I feel like we're there.

Now, I'm gonna put them in pans and cook them in the oven.

[upbeat jazz music]

As I fill the pate, I'm going to stud the top

with a little bit more of that rehydrated fig,

let people know what flavor it is,

slam it down a few times to push out any air

that might have happened while I was filling it.

I'm gonna place it here in these hotel pans.

We're gonna pour in our hot water bath.

It's allowing it not to come

from one heat source but kind of all around

and it cooks a little bit more evenly.

That'll keep the moisture in

but also emulsify at the same time.

Boom. And then I'm gonna head this over to the oven.

Coming down, right behind, corner.

[Sarah grunts]

In she goes.

Tend to load the pate pan in a little bit closer

to the fire.

You're gonna get more of your higher 400 degree heat.

They're gonna take about an hour.

It's 11, we have about an hour to cook family meal

and I'm gonna go see what's in the back.

[upbeat jazz music]

The way to determine what we're gonna use

for staff meal is, do we have anything that's excess?

Is anything cooked off?

So I kind of look through here

and I see that there's some leftover chicken thighs

from yesterday that weren't used for family,

so, I'm gonna scoop those up.

We have some already cooked off pasta.

And then, I see that we also have arugula.

We like to centralize where all the things

for family meal goes.

So it's a little bit easier for people

to decipher what they're gonna make.

We like to rotate staff meal

so that everyone kind of has a chance to participate,

and it's kind of their time to show off what they can do

and kind of experience something together.

I think I'm gonna start smoking some chickens.

Marinate it in a little bit of ginger scallion

and so I'm just gonna kind of pour it over.

Scrummaged through people's stations to see what they had,

excess of or things that they weren't gonna use

today for service.

I'm gonna start skin side down to kind of help

with making sure that it doesn't stick to the rack.

A lot of the fat is gonna render out through that,

so it'll create like a little layer

between the rack and the meat.

I like making family meal.

It's kind of breaks up the monotony of everyday routine.

I'm gonna put it up top to smoke.

When I'm putting them up here,

I'm gonna look for where the fire is,

and obviously, right above is gonna be the hottest,

and probably more likely to burn,

but as you can see there's a little bit of smoke

that billows up to the side,

and that's gonna give me a little bit more gentle heat,

and it's going to smoke it more evenly.

I prefer smoking over grilling,

because I think it gives you a little bit more leeway.

It's a little bit lower and slower,

and so, the likelihood of burning it is less.

And also I think it makes the chicken a little bit juicier.

And the next thing I'm gonna do is head

over to the back and get some veggies for our noodles.

I'm thinking I'm gonna go like yakisoba routes,

and then I'm gonna use this cauliflower.

I have some celery here.

Take these noodles that are already cooked up

and kind of kiss them on the plancha

get 'em a little seared up with some veggies.

[upbeat jazz music continues]

I prefer cooking on the plancha.

Number one, less dishes.

And number two, it's a larger flat surface.

So I'm able to cook more food faster.

Family meal in the mornings are for about 15 people,

whereas at night it's about 20 to 25,

and it's really important to have enough food for everyone,

so that everyone's geared up and ready to go for the day.

I'm gonna start adding my noods.

It's a little hot.

So I added a little bit of soy sauce.

Season everything a little bit more.

Sesame oil burns easily, so I wanna add it towards the end.

Sacrificial noodle.

Hmm, all right, serveable.

I'm gonna check on my birds.

It's a lot easier to work here if you're tall.

I've been short my whole life, so I'm very crafty.

[staff laughing]

The chickens are a little bit more opaque

and then you'll see that the skin has seized up a little bit

and has a brown color to it.

They look pretty good, but I wanna get maybe

the skin potentially a little bit crispy.

So, I'm gonna pop it in the oven

for two to five minutes, and then it's ready to go.

We have some arugula here.

This green salsa would be like a fun vinaigrette,

so I'm gonna try it out and see what happens.

Mm, mm!

I'm going in.

Oh, yeah, they're looking right tonight.

All right.

And lunch is served.

[upbeat jazz music]

It is 12:30.

We just got back from lunch

and we're about to go on a crab party.

Crab party! Crab party!

We like to get a couple of people together

to harvest all of the meat off of the crab.

Now this is Dungeness crab.

It's kind of like a hometown hero.

And so whenever it's in, it's like a hot commodity,

and everyone tries to get it as much as possible.

The part of the crab that I have here is the body.

What I like to do is go in with my kitchen shears

and build myself a little route so I can crack it in half

and have access to most of the abdomen meat

a little bit easier.

And I'm gonna take my tweezers, pluck them out of there.

The crab is used in our first snacks,

served with the chawanmushi on a separate plate

with a brain sauce on the bottoms.

And then, on top is the harvested meat from this.

A couple pieces of leg

and it's finished with our house made fel XO.

Traditionally it's made with dehydrated scallops

and Chinese bacon.

And here, we've just used our duck prosciutto

in supplement of the Chinese bacon.

We have here a crab leg and I'm gonna use my shears

and come in on the side,

because we want it to be as whole as possible.

I'm gonna go all the way through.

Shimmy the top off and we have our whole leg here.

Now we have a claw.

I'm gonna take off this side first

and kind of slowly wiggle out.

And I'm gonna do the same thing that we did before

with the leg, with my scissors, and try to build a path.

Oh, yeah, see there, you kind of cut through,

pop the top off and then I'm gonna hold onto the base,

and then pull out a little, oh, that was anticlimactic.

Look at that little guy. [Seth laughing]

We got the goods.

Well, our crab party is officially over.

A day in my life.

All right, behind, behind, coming down.

Right behind, coming down, coming down, right behind.

It's almost two o'clock.

We're gonna get ready for our roundup meeting,

where we all kind of gather before the day

and talk about anything that might be pertinent to service.

We want to do it right every time.

We want to value the guests that are coming in.

The service here at Osito is different

than other restaurants because we are one communal table.

So it's just a matter of orchestrating

the timing of everything, so that everyone is accommodated

in a timely fashion.

We only have one aversion today and it's one, no shellfish.

So that means we'll have like an uni supplement

just to be safe.

The expectations when coming in to eat here

I feel are a little bit higher than most restaurants due to,

recently being awarded a star.

So, it's important for us to kind of maintain that level

and standard of excellence as much to our ability.

[upbeat music]

So, it's about three o'clock.

I'm gonna go around the kitchen to make sure everyone's good

for service and pick up any little tasks.

Do we have more of this by the way?

Yeah, we do. Part of my job to go through

and make sure that we have everything for service.

I wanna check the quantities, the quality.

I like to also take note

of how quickly we're going through things

to see if it needs to be done the next day.

Hmm, yum!

So we're checking in on our last batch of pate for the day.

To make sure that it's ready,

I'm gonna use my digital thermometer here

and I'm looking for an internal temperature of at least 131.

We see we're a little bit over, which is great.

Corner out, hot stuff. Hot stuff!

[Sarah] All right, it's five o'clock.

[Staff] Five!

We call back in this kitchen just to make sure

that everyone heard that information and that's my way

of knowing and confirming that they heard what I said.

We just got our reservation sheet for the evening.

That means it's about 5:15.

We open at 5:30.

I hope you got an idea of what it was like to

be a sous chef here at Osito.

Unfortunately, you have to go, and we love seeing you soon.

Bye!

That's a wrap! [upbeat music]

Here at Osito, the man behind it all.

Seth Stowaway!

Hey! [laughs]

We call him dead.